Early had a way with his story of Pi. He was so convinced that we were following in Pi’s footsteps that I found myself cocking my ear in anticipation of hearing a faint chime or ringing in the distance, just like the bell sound Pi heard when he was lost in the maze. But I heard nothing more than the sprinkling of rain, which was beginning to fall on the trees and leaves around us. My face was hot. How could I have fallen for this craziness and let Early sucker me in with his story?
“So Pi heard a bell that led him out of the maze? Well, lucky for him,” I said, pulling the rain poncho from my pack and putting it on over my already-damp clothes. “I don’t hear anything but the sound of us getting wet. We’d better keep moving.”
Early didn’t respond. He seemed lost in his musings about Pi as he put on his own rain poncho.
That was okay; I didn’t want to talk anyway. And pretty soon we were trudging along in a steady rain that soaked our shoes and chilled us to our bones. I wished I had the wide-brimmed Stetson that I could still see hanging on the hat stand in our mudroom back home. I hadn’t brought it to Maine, because who needs a cowboy hat in Maine? But just then, it would have provided some protection for my rain-spattered and scowling face.
I narrowed my eyes so that they were open only a slit and tried to let the sounds of the wet forest guide me. It’s amazing what you can hear when you’re not distracted by seeing. A few squirrels and birds chattered and squawked, first to my left, then to my right, as if playing some sort of forest game of hide-and-seek.
But as we continued on and the day grew darker with more clouds and trees, the noises grew darker as well. The wet leaves gave a sucking sound beneath my feet, as if trying to pull me into the ground. The rain lost its pitter-patter as it grew heavier, seeming more like a heavy sigh now. The whole forest exhaled an ancient breath that it must have held since its great trees were saplings. I felt as if I were being drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery of the woods. I knew that inside each tree, etched into its core, were circles, each ring telling the story of a year in the life of that tree and this forest. What kinds of scars and jagged lines would someone find in the life of a tree? I wondered.
Did people have telltale lines like that? What would mine look like? I didn’t need to see them. I knew they had been severed last summer. A gash had been cut into me, so deep that I felt I was at that tipping point, when the lumberjack is just about to yell “Timber!” But somehow I remained poised, in precarious balance, not sure which way I might fall.
As I let my thoughts ramble, the sound of the rain changed, becoming tinnier, like the pinging of water off a metal roof. Maybe there was a barn or shed nearby.
I veered toward the sound, not because I was trying to find its source, but because that was the only way the narrow path would let us go. The pinging got louder and more rhythmic. It reminded me of my mother’s laughter, light and musical. The forest must be playing tricks on me, I thought. I could almost hear her calling my name.
Jackie, Jackie. Time for supper.
My steps quickened, even though I knew it wasn’t real. It was probably just the wind rushing through the trees.
“Do you hear that?” Early said, drawing me out of my reverie.
“No,” I said, not wanting to let on that my imagination had run away like a bee-stung horse. Besides, what could I say? Hear what? That woman calling out from the middle of nowhere? He’d think I was crazy.
“Hear what?” I said.
“That woman calling out,” he answered, plain as day.
Then we heard it again, closer. The rhythmic sound. Ting, ting, ting. Ting, ting, ting.
Without warning, the trees opened onto a tiny clearing, where there was a rusted-out Model T providing a rain break for a raccoon lounging underneath; a worn-out, old log cabin; and an even older-looking woman with a long gray braid that hung past her waist. The braid swung back and forth as she worked a metal rod around the inside of a triangle, making the rhythmic clanging sound.
“Martin,” she called. “Time for supper.”
Early and I watched her long braid swing to and fro. I wondered if she had one twist in her braid for every year of her life, just as a tree had one line in its core for every year of its life. If she did, she’d be over a hundred. And she looked it.
“She’s old,” I whispered to Early.
He shook his head. “She’s ancient.”
I hung back under cover of the trees, still clearing my head of my mom’s voice calling me, realizing it was just this old woman calling someone named Martin. But Early had his own plans, as usual.
“Go on.” He gave me a shove, pushing me out into the clearing. “She said it’s suppertime.”
The woman stopped ringing her dinner triangle, leaving the clanging rod in midair.
She’d spotted me.
“Well, there you are,” she said. “Come in out of that rain—you’ll catch your death.”